i think that republicans came up the day after the election and said look, we are open to new revenues an we understand we want to get new re-knews -- revenues to generate new revenues but we are open to new revenues. they thought of that with the hope and expectation that democrats would come with specificity on the spending cuts or entitlen'ts. however naive the expectation might have been. what we are seeing now is the president seeming to be entertaining any of a number of suggestions, including going over the cliff or decoupling. that would avoid, allow him to avoid having to prevent specifics on entitlements and spending on the things that the republicans were hoping could bring them together for some kind of a fruitful negotiation. >> bret: is that your take, kirsten? >> not really. i'm not really sure what are the specifics that republicans offer on entitlement cuts? not like they put anything on the table. they are at the point now they are focused on the tax cut. obama feels like he has an upper hand there. he said he wants a grand bargain. he does want a grand bargain. but t